Courting Rituals
by newyorktopaloalto
Summary: In which Dutchy is an idiot, Davey solves everything  again,  and Specs and Bumlets look on, bemused. Sputchlets, 1899.


A/N: Hey, look, more Newsies! Actually, no one should be surprised at this point. Jess, you know who you are; this is for you!

Disclaimer: Still no. Still wishing every night. Not gonna happen.

**~*Sputchlets*~**

"Are you okay though?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"It's just- I saw you-"

"Bumlets, you gotta calm down, he said he was fine. You are okay, aren't ya, Dutchy?"

Dutchy nodded ruefully and spared a look over at Specs which went along the lines of, 'of course I'm fine, you moron, but thanks for worrying Bumlets, again.' Specs just smiled and shrugged, denoting that making sure Dutchy was actually okay was worth freaking out Bumlets for a little longer.

Bumlets looked between the two of them and shook his head, muttering something about 'idiots that never took care of themselves until it was too late to do any good.'

Specs grinned at that and pulled Bumlets over to their little corner by his shoulder. Bumlets tried to dodge the arm currently wrapping around him, but eventually let himself be led over. He stood there for a moment, glancing between Specs and Dutchy, before snorting and dropping down on the bunk, being careful not to dislodge Dutchy from his comfortable position. Specs sat down at the foot of the bunk and grinned brightly at the two of them.

"You two are my best friends, right?" Dutchy finally asked, eyes darting between the both of them, "And you guys wouldn't judge me or hate me, right?"

"I might judge you, but I could never hate you," Bumlets stated, before Specs could get a word in edgewise.

Both Specs and Dutchy glared at him, and he proceeded to put his hands up in a pacifying gesture.

"He may decide to say or do something extremely stupid, is all," he defended.

Specs rolled his eyes. "No, we won't judge you, Dutchy. What do you have to tell us?"

"I'm thinking of courting someone."

Specs and Bumlets stopped moving and the bunkroom was still and quiet for what seemed like hours to their frantically racing minds. They looked at each other, in sync, and seemed to falter on what they were going to say.

"Who?" Specs finally managed to get out, wincing at the sound of his own tone, which came out garbled and strained.

"Just a girl I met. She works over at that Dutch restaurant that you guys brought me to that one time." Dutchy shrugged, nonchalant.

Bumlets let out a strangled groan and closed his eyes sharply. Specs and Dutchy both swiveled their heads towards him, concerned, and Specs started rubbing his back soothingly.

"What's wrong with you?" Dutchy asked, making motions to sit up.

"Nothin,'" Specs snapped, pushing Dutchy back down, "and you know you're not supposed to sit up yet."

They sat there for a few moments, Bumlets struggling to compose himself, Specs rubbing his back and whispering in his ear, and Dutchy watching the both of them, a confused frown on his face.

"Hey you guys… What's wrong?" It was David.

"Nothin,'" Dutchy shrugged, "I'm thinkin' of courtin' a girl I met and I think Bumlets is sick."

David started coughing on air.

"What?" he gasped out, once he could breathe again.

"I know, right? Bumlets is never sick."

Specs let out a cough and took a deep breath.

"I'm going to go and take Bumlets over to the washroom, okay? Hopefully the walk will make him feel better."

Dutchy nodded and David kept looking incredulously at him. Dutchy let out a nervous laugh, wondering why he was doing so.

"What's wrong, David?" he finally asked, the silence becoming very uncomfortable.

"Are you an idiot?" David asked simply, face devoid of expression.

"Not that I know of?" Dutchy stated, though it came out more of a question.

"Well now you know."

David turned to walk away but Dutchy stopped him before he could. He winced when he sat up, looking around quickly to make sure Bumlets wasn't there to see him do so.

"What are you even talking about, Davey?" he asked, voice taking on a pleading note.

David just shook his head and gave him a sympathetic look.

"Talk to Bumlets and Specs about it. It's not my place to say anything."

He then turned and crossed the room, stairs barely making a noise as he walked down them.

Dutchy suddenly had an uneasy feeling about the whole situation.

**~*Sputchlets*~**

It was 15 or so minutes after Davey left, and Bumlets and Specs still hadn't come out from wherever they had gone. Dutchy frowned and stared at the bunk above him. Where were they? Was Bumlets really sick and Specs had to take him to the doctor? Did they both forget about him and went to do something? Did the both of them die in some tragic accident? Dutchy was panicking.

And then, almost as if on cue, Specs and Bumlets showed up once more. Dutchy let out a sigh of relief and smiled at the both of them.

They didn't smile back.

His grin faltered and deadened as they sat together on the bunk adjacent to his.

"What's wrong, you guys?" he asked warily, uneasy feeling from earlier returning in full force.

They looked at each other for a moment, Specs opening his mouth to speak once Bumlets shook his frantically and gestured to him.

"You are," Specs stated, wincing immediately at his word choice, "I mean- we have a problem because of you. Your actions, I mean.

"Bum, you're going to have to say this, you know how horrible I am."

"We have a problem with the fact that you want to court someone."

Dutchy glanced between the two of them, obviously confused and slightly flustered.

"What's wrong with my courting someone?" he asked tentatively, eyes straying, for the first time, to where Specs' and Bumlets' hands were clasped tightly together.

He drew in a sharp breath, wanting to be a part of their handholding and then winced at the thought. No. He wasn't going to go down that path again. They were only doing it because Bumlets was sick and Specs was making sure he didn't fall over or anything.

It wasn't going to happen and that's why he had to get over it. Find a nice girl, settle down, and have a couplea kids. He would not pine after his best friends for the rest of his life. Even if trying to forget them killed him, he would do it.

Specs cleared his throat, and Dutchy realized that Bumlets had been speaking the entire time he had been arguing with himself. He glanced up, sheepish, and admitted that he hadn't heard a word of what was said to him.

"Justo la suerte de enamorarse de un idiota, ¿no?" Bumlets looked to Specs, as if he would understand, and sighed when all he received was a blank stare.

"Dutchy, we don't want you courting someone," Bumlets sighed, obviously not up to the task of actually repeating the entirety of his lecture.

"Why?" he asked, still confused and to the point of getting annoyed.

Bumlets took a deep breath and let it out slowly, closing his eyes as he answered.

"We're in love with you. The both of us, I mean," he winced and opened his eyes, looking somewhere to the left of Dutchy.

Dutchy lined his gaze with Specs,' which wasn't hard as Specs was looking right at him and Specs gave a short nod in agreement.

"And with each other," Specs added on, squeezing Bumlets' hand.

Dutchy was shocked. Out of everything they could have said, this was the one statement he was least expecting. His thoughts whirled around his head, everything from 'what will the other boys think?' (quickly dashed out because of the obvious relationship of Race and Skittery) to 'what if they know about me and are tricking me?' (also dashed out, because no matter how they like to pull jokes on each other, they never did anything intentionally malicious.)

"You guys… are in love with me?" he asked, hardly daring to breathe in case the answer was different this time around.

"And with each other," he continued slowly, still trying to process the information.

It was Bumlets that nodded this time and Dutchy slowly nodded back, still completely baffled at the sudden turn of events.

The three of them sat there (or laid there, in Dutchy's case) for a few more moments, Specs and Bumlets getting more nervous by the second, and Dutchy still too stunned to speak coherently.

"Well, say something!" Specs practically shouted, startling both Dutchy and Bumlets.

"Am I dreaming again?" Dutchy managed to get out, voice low and slightly strangled.

He grinned goofily at the both of them, "Because if I am, I don't want to wake up."

Specs barked out a laugh and Bumlets quickly followed, pallor returning back to their normal shades.

"No, you're not dreaming," Bumlets breathed out, anxiety driven voice all but disappearing into his smile, "this is actually happening, don't worry."

Dutchy grinned and nodded once more, gesturing for the two of them to join him on his bunk. They obliged, sitting on both sides of his prone form. They then proceeded to take the hand of Dutchy's closest to them and linked their own over his stomach.

"I love you both as well," Dutchy stated, squeezing their hands, "as if it weren't obvious."

Specs shook his head. "It wasn't. At all, really."

Bumlets reached over and hit him on the back of the head, returning his hand to Dutchy's right after.

"Okay, well it was," he conceded, "but then it seemed to suddenly stop, right in the middle of our big courting gestures. So we got confused. Because we were courting you and you just seemed to suddenly stop liking it.

"And then, when we were going to tell you, you hurt your back," he gestured to Dutchy's form, "so we figured that we would wait until you got better.

"And then you started talking about a girl that you wanted to court and we—well, mostly Bumlets, freaked.

"So we decided to tell you now, screw the consequences." Specs nodded resolutely at the end of his monologue, smiling in the awkward fashion that Dutchy always found endearing.

"Well, it's a good thing I didn't actually start courting her, isn't it?"

Bumlets nodded and smiled, then paused as if contemplating something for the first time.

"Why did you decide to court her in the first place?" he asked, almost wounded sounding.

"I was stupid," Dutchy started explaining, squeezing the both of their hands again, "and I thought that if I started courting her, I would be able to get over the two of you, because I thought that the two of you were straight. Obviously I was wrong on both accounts. But I'm glad I told you about wanting to, though…"

He paused for dramatic effect, smirking when the both of them leaned in, in anticipation, "because it made the two of you decide to tell me. Think about how long the three of us would have been in a stalemate if not for me deciding to court that girl. We could have been in one forever."

He shrugged at that, dodging the two hands that came out to swat at him.

"Hey, I'm injured here!" he shouted playfully, immediately regretting it as Bumlets started to once again freak out.

"Bumlets, shut up," he groused, reaching up and pulling Bumlets down by his lapels.

He kissed him quiet, breathing slowly and evenly throughout it, heart pounding all the while. He pulled away when he heard Specs start to complain about being left out and switched his grip over to the bespectacled boy. He kissed him the same as the other and when he pulled away, his breath was coming in short gasps.

Bumlets immediately rose to his knees and kissed Specs as well, and Dutchy, well, he certainly wasn't going to complain. They parted and settled down on the bunk once more.

The three of them lay there, silent and content, for a few minutes.

"Oh my God, that's why David thought I was an idiot!" Dutchy suddenly exclaimed, startling Bumlets out of his light sleep, and making Specs laugh.

"Yeah," Specs said, talking around his grin, "I think everybody knew about us trying to court you, except you. It was a little pathetic, really."

"On my part or on yours?" Dutchy asked, mildly affronted.

"On both," Bumlets yawned, closing his eyes once more, "Now can we go to sleep, we have morning edition tomorrow."

Dutchy and Specs both hummed in agreement, closing their eyes as well.

"I can't sell tomorrow," Dutchy complained, earning a groan from Bumlets.

"¡Dios mío, yes you can!"

"But you're the one who said to rest my back and not move for a couple of days."

"Does your back hurt?" Bumlets asked curtly.

"No."

"Then I lied, you can do whatever you want to."

He huffed and turned on his stomach, burying his head in Dutchy's pillow, resolutely attempting to fall asleep.

"You know how he gets when he's tired," Specs whispered, stifling a laugh.

"That's why I figured I would talk to him now, instead of tomorrow morning." Dutchy smirked and shrugged his shoulder.

Specs grinned once more, uttering a 'good night' to the both of them.

Dutchy fell asleep, content for the first time in awhile.

**~*Sputchlets*~**

Needless to say, no one was surprised when they walked into the bunkhouse to the sight of the three of them sharing a bunk.

Race laughed and collected the money he earned from his and the other boys' betting. He then proceeded to tell Skittery to free his lunch plans, because they were going out on a date. Skittery rolled his eyes and acquiesced, wondering how in the hell Dutchy, Specs, and Bumlets could survive having two boyfriends, whereas he could barely manage having one.

**~*Sputchlets*~**

And David, once again, was content in the knowledge that he managed to get another group of love struck idiots together.

Now all he needed to do was go find Spot and convince him that they would be perfect together. After all, sometimes a matchmaker needs to think of his own needs.


End file.
